


that our feet may leave, but not our hearts

by sixbeforelunch



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, Female Friendship, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-18
Updated: 2007-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-23 12:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixbeforelunch/pseuds/sixbeforelunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's exactly as hard to track Vala down as Sam imagined it would be."</p>
            </blockquote>





	that our feet may leave, but not our hearts

_Where we love is home,  
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.  
~Oliver Wendell Holmes_

It's exactly as hard to track Vala down as Sam imagined it would be. She finds her somewhere she never expected, on what Sam can't help but think of as a hippie commune although if Daniel were here he'd point out that she's generalizing and probably missing out on important nuances of the culture because of it.

But Daniel isn't here and that's part of the problem, isn't it?

Vala has dirt under her fingernails, but while everyone else here wears long robes and close-cropped hair, Vala has on a midriff showing top and loose pants and has barrettes in her long hair. The sight makes Sam smile.

"I have to admit, this is the last place I expected to find you," Sam says.

Vala doesn't look up from the plot of dirt she's working. "I like it here," she says. "It makes me feel corporeal."

Sam doesn't say anything for a while. She watches Vala spread the seeds in the ground. Sam ordered SG-5 to keep their distance, and she can see Major Vasquez making small talk with one of the residents while the rest of his team looks over the food offerings. The sun is beating down on her head from a light lavender sky and Sam can feel sweat starting to pool in the middle of her back. Vala doesn't seem inclined to make small talk.

"We need to save the world. Again," Sam says and Vala finally stops working. She leans back onto her haunches and shades her eyes when she looks up at Sam.

"Your world?"

"Among others," Sam says. "We have a job that requires your specialized skill set?"

Vala grins, the same huge, frightening grin that Sam remembers. "What needs stealing?"

"Not stealing," Sam says. "Reacquiring captured technology."

"So you're stealing it back," Vala says.

"Basically, yeah."

Vala stands up, brushes dirt off of her pants and straightens her hair. "I haven't been to Earth in a long time."

"Three years," Sam says. There have been a lot of changes since then. Sam has a star on each shoulder these days.

Sam remembers when they realized Vala was gone. She left without saying goodbye and Sam tried hard to be angry about that, but never managed it. She does manage to be angry at Daniel, though, even if they were all kind of expecting it to happen again one day.

Everyone except Vala.

Vala never did realize just how much Daniel was willing to sacrifice. Or maybe she did and she just thought that she would be the exception. She would be the thing that kept Daniel tied to corporeal existence in a way nothing else ever had before.

"Come home, Vala," Sam says.

"I am home," Vala counters. "Home is where you make it."

"Home is where you have people who care about you. Daniel wasn't the only person who loved you, Vala."

Vala picks at the dirt on her nails. They don't say his name much, especially not around Vala. Maybe that was a mistake. They danced around her, they gave her space, they spoke platitudes, they said, "He's not dead, maybe he'll be back someday." No one ever said, "It's okay to grieve. He might as well be dead. He probably won't be back in any of our lifetimes."

Maybe Vala just wanted to hear the truth all along and that was the one thing no one was willing to give her.

"I still miss him," Vala says.

"Me too."

"I hate the Ascended. And the Ori. All of them. They took him and I hate them."

"Me too."

"I hate Daniel for agreeing to go."

"I know. Me too. A little."

Sam remembers that day too. Daniel standing there in the briefing room, looking perfectly normal and ordinary in a sweater and khakis. Except this wasn't perfectly normal and ordinary and Daniel wasn't really standing there, it was just a representation, a facsimile of human form.

 _"They need me," Daniel said._

 _"The all powerful Ascended need the help of little old you," Cam said._

 _"They need me to mediate. In a manner of speaking. It's complicated. Diplomacy on the higher planes is somewhat...different."_

 _"Why you?" Sam asked._

 _"Because the Ascended trust me. And the Ori..."_

 _"Like you?" General O'Neill suggested._

 _Daniel tipped his head. "Call it a grudging respect," Daniel said. He paused and looked at Vala who had turned away, looking out the window to the gate room. "And they all know that I'm not a big fan of either side. I guess they think I'm the closest thing they'll find to a neutral party."_

 _"There must be another available to complete this task," Teal'c said._

 _"Maybe," Daniel admitted. "But apparently I had a few fans left over from...last time. They insisted."_

 _"And you agreed," Vala said, not looking at him. "You just agreed to give up everything here and just leave."_

 _"There was...compensation," Daniel said. "Oma...Oma would have been trapped forever battling Anubis. I couldn't leave her like that. The Others agreed to take care of him once and for all, in exchange for...my help. And...do you know how an all out war between the Ascended and the Ori would manifest itself on this level? It--well, it would be bad. For all of us. I...think I can help to prevent that. Maybe."_

 _"You coming back?" Cam asked._

 _"I hope so," Daniel said. "When it's done. But it might take a while."_

 _"A month? A year?" General O'Neill asked._

 _"A while," Daniel said. "I have to go."_

 _They all turned away when Daniel started to glow. No one had good associations with that sight._

"He came to see me after he...left, you know. He told me he loved me. He told me not to wait for him. So I didn't." Vala looks at her, wary and unsure. On impulse Sam pulls Vala into a hug, heedless of SG-5 watching her and the extra-planetary hippies standing around.

"Come home, Vala," Sam says and lets her go. "Come home to the people who understand."

Vala taps her finger against her chin dramatically. "I get to steal something?"

"What? Oh, yeah, sure."

Vala narrows her eyes. "Do you really need me?"

Sam grins sheepishly. "Well having you on the mission will make it a whole lot easier. But...I may have exaggerated the difficulty of the operation to my superiors...just so they'd let me take a team to find you."

Vala smiles, a big grin but not so frightening this time. "You really missed me?"

"We really missed you Vala," Sam says. "Come home."

So Vala does.

end


End file.
